Chapter 4: Spellcasting - Dungeons & Dragons vs. Rick and Morty: Basic Rules

Chapter 4: Spellcasting. Magic permeates the worlds of D&D and most often appears in the form of a spell. This chapter provides the rules for casting spells. Clerics and wizards have distinctive ways of learning and preparing their spells, and monsters use spells in unique ways. Regardless of its source, a spell follows the rules here. This is the IT'S MAGIC, MORTY! Blazing fire shooting out of your fingertips, mind control, teleportation, and other badass power moves! Yeah, yeah... your rogue can pick a lock and climb a wall. I just blew that f***ing door off its hinges and then flew past you on my way to eldritch glory. EAT MY SPARKLY ASSSSSS! What Is a Spell? A spell is a discrete magical effect, a single shaping of the magical energies that suffuse the multiverse into a specific, limited expression. In casting a spell, a character carefully plucks at the invisible strands of raw magic suffusing the world, pins them in place in a particular pattern, sets them vibrating in a specific way, and then releases them to unleash the desired effect-in most cases, all in the span of seconds. Spells can be versatile tools, weapons, or protective wards. They can deal damage or undo it, impose or remove conditions (see appendix A), drain life energy away, and restore life to the dead. Read all that and then explain to me how an axe-wielding mouth breather is gonna keep up with ME. Do you see a section in this book about fighter powers? You suuuure don't. Spell Level Every spell in this set has a level from 0 to 3. A spell's level is a general indicator of how powerful it is, with the lowly (but still impressive) magic missile at 1st level and the devastating fireball at 3rd. (Spells of higher levels, up to 9th, exist in the world but aren't included in this set.) Cantrips-simple but powerful spells that characters can cast almost by rote-are level 0. The higher a spell's level, the higher level a spellcaster must be to use that spell. Spell level and character level don't...